Page 19 of Hex and the City
His back turned to me, Max pulled his tank top up and over his head as he strutted toward the bathroom.
“Whatever you say, baby.”
In a different context, using a different tone of voice, what he said could have been sexy. Instead it made my fists tighten, my toes curl. Plus, I couldn’t even get a good look at his torso. So inconsiderate.
And I realized too late that I’d let him have the last word.
“You’d better not take forever in that bathroom,” I said.
He stopped at the door, feet plodding heavily as he turned toward me. I held my breath. I was expecting a six pack. Nope. The man had eight, split by a trail of dark, tantalizing hair leading down to his waistband. He grabbed the front of his jeans and pulled down his zipper, the sound of it ripping through the silence.
“Don’t worry, baby,” he said, this time with a suggestive purr. “You’ll get your turn, too.”
The bathroom door clicked shut. Black undies. I’d definitely caught a flash of black undies, and he’d definitely caught me staring at his abs.
And he had the last word again, too.
Fucking hell.
10
MAX
Hot water drummed like rain drops against the tiled floor. There was a second positive to this rundown motel, after all. The shower wasn’t nearly as horrible as I’d expected, the ceramic freshly grouted, the paint on the walls so new and white that it hurt my eyeballs.
I squirted a drop of body wash onto the palm of my hand, the bottle among the essentials I kept stashed in my go-bag. Kudos to the motel for bothering to renovate their bathrooms, but that didn’t mean they’d upgraded beyond flimsy bars of soap that never lathered no matter how hard you scrubbed.
“What a prick,” I muttered under my breath, counting on the rush of water to deaden the sound of my voice. He’d even put a hand on me. The last guy who did that got laid out flat, and not in a good way.
I clenched my teeth as I scrubbed, as my fingernails ran over the exact spot on my chest where Leon had shoved — rather, tried to shove me. Something about his fire was so engaging, that strange spark of his, how he was so brazenly confident and infuriatingly optimistic.
Arrogant spunk. That was the best way to describe it. And in another lifetime, we would have ripped our clothes off in the heat of that argument. I might have even gotten a taste of Leon’s arrogant spunk.
But we had a job to do. I was nothing if not professional, and the last thing I needed to distract me from this very delicate operation was a sassy upstart equipped with puppy-dog eyes and a pretty mouth.
My hand went down to soap my privates, which was when I noticed that my cock was behaving in a decidedly unprofessional way.
“Oh. Excuse you. No. Behave.”
The steady sprinkle of water along my shaft, over the swelling head of my cock did nothing to help the matter. This Leonardo Alcantara had been a thorn in my side since the night I met him — which was basically twenty-four hours ago, more or less. And most of the minutes I spent with him gave me the overwhelming urge to wring his neck.
But I couldn’t deny that parts of me also wondered what it would be like to grab him by the shoulders, pin him against the wall, or down on the mattress. Parts of me wondered how it might feel to force him to stop making stupid jokes and goofy faces for once, either by grinding the heel of my palm against his jeans to make him moan, or by kissing him hard on his perfect mouth to keep him busy, shut him up for a few precious, delicious moments.
And those parts of me hardened even more.
I glanced down, then glowered, my cock engorged, a welcome sight on most other occasions. But this was a matter of pride. Rubbing one out to Leon meant he would win, even if he never found out. The thought of the irritating man-child next door still slurping away on his sodium-laden noodles winning, against me?
My lips pressed together in an almighty sulk. I clenched my fists, willing, praying for my erection to subside.
Didn’t fucking work. Even after the water went off, even as I dried myself and wrapped my lower half in a towel. That actually made it even worse, the French terry tickling and teasing at my poor, sensitive, misbehaving member.
But the sudden pounding on the door, what sounded like the beginnings of Leon’s insistent complaining? Maybe that would help.
“I heard the water shut off,” he called through the bathroom door. “You rubbing one out in there?”
“Fuck off, Alcantara.” I stared at my reflection in shame, watching as my chest, my neck, my cheeks reddened.
“Well, I wanna wash up, too. Maybe things are different in your palatial home that’s filled with platinum wristwatches and sports cars with leather interiors, but us peasant folk grew up sharing bathrooms.”
